Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. Amen.
Those opening words from the Collect of the Day today set the scene for Advent. This is a time of encroaching light. It’s a time of coming-to-see more clearly.
But acknowledging that it’s a time of coming-to-see more clearly implies that up to now, we have seen dimly. Encroaching light means that the encroachment is through darkness.
The danger we can fall victim to at this time of year is that of equating darkness with “bad” and brightness with “good”. It’s true that we are anticipating the light. It’s true that so much of how we mark these days of darkness is by imitating the light – our ever-brightening Advent wreath, the Christmas lights that pierce the night, the acts of charity that we extend to those in need.
But there is a place for the darkness in our lives, and yes, even in our faith. We need the darkness for rest. And we need it to appreciate – and even to define the light. We’re not strong enough to handle unencumbered light. Imagine driving west about an hour before sunset on a cloudless day. The light can be too much to handle. It can blind us.
Now imagine our weak bodies encountering an unfiltered light of Christ – an unfiltered brightness of the love of God. Are we now, on this plane of existence, ready for that? Advent is about getting ready for that, but it admits we’re not ready yet.
As we begin Advent, I’ve been rereading Truman Capote’s short story, “A Christmas Memory”. It’s called “A Christmas Memory”, but my liturgist’s heart knows that it’s mostly a story of remembering one Advent. Christmas is its penultimate punctuation – but the bulk of the story is about Advent.
It’s the story of the narrator (presumably Capote, himself), recounting a memory from his childhood. He’s 7 years old and remembers the preparations he made for Christmas with his best friend at the time, a distant cousin in his household who is in her 60s, but who is held in a not fully developed state of mild naiveté after surviving a disease she suffered when she was a child.
This friend of his senses a change in the weather, and from that, she knows that it’s time to get ready. So the two go about gathering the things they’ll need to prepare. First, for the 30 fruitcakes they intend to make and share with people who had been significant for them in the previous year; and second, for the homemade decorations and gifts through which they would announce the season’s joy in their own home.
Just as the boy’s friend used the cues she found in nature to know when it was time to prepare, our reading from the Gospel today tells us to do the same. It tells us that there will be signs in the “sun, moon, and stars” that let us know that it’s time to prepare. And it tells us that just as we look to the signs of nature to let us know about the changing seasons, there also will be signs that we can see to know that the era of God’s reign of justice is about to begin.
Luke uses a phrase to describe these days that can seem sort of strange to us today – at least it always seems sort of strange to me. It says, “They will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.”
That phrase “Son of Man” always perplexed me a bit. I know that when most of us hear that, we sort of automatically substitute in “Jesus”, in our minds. That’s what I was always taught. But it never really sat right with me.
For one thing, in the Christian Scriptures, Jesus is the only one who actually says, “Son of Man”. It’s a phrase that’s lifted from the Hebrew Scriptures, but coming from Jesus, it seems to be saying something a little bit different. It seems to be less about judgement, than it is about fulfillment. Today we read: “Now when these things take place… your redemption is drawing near.” That doesn’t sound like something we should fear – like the iron fist of God falling on us from on high. Instead, it sounds like something to anticipate with great hope and expectation.
So lately, when I’ve heard Jesus talking about the “Son of Man”, I’ve been hearing it differently. It’s not just another name for Jesus, and it’s certainly not a threatening figure from on high, but it refers to a promise of the fulfillment of all creation. It refers to the embodiment of hope.
And hope is a little bit like the darkness of early Advent. Hope acknowledges that something is missing – hope knows that something could be better. But it doesn’t get lost in the absence. Hope leaves room. Hope leaves room for what’s missing. Hope tells us that what we know isn’t all there is. Hope is that empty space – waiting to be filled.
In “A Christmas Memory”, at the end of one of their days’ work, the boy watches his friend looking out the window from the warm kitchen into the coming winter. He notices that “dusk turns the window into a mirror.”
And that’s another feature of the darkness. The light is a window. It gives us a glimpse into all that can be. But the darkness is a mirror. It peels away the distractions of the outside world and helps us to see ourselves.
But before we can see these signs that are promised – before we can look out the window – first we must look in the mirror. First, we must see ourselves clearly and rid ourselves of the things that could keep us from seeing what God is showing us. We have to put aside all of our self-imposed distortions of reality - things that keep us from seeing most clearly.
I remember that one of the rallying cries of the Evangelical churches that I’ve encountered through the years is to “be in the world, but not of the world.” It’s not bad advice on the surface, except that it’s often used as a cudgel to shame people for being a part of the created order, and to disparage the created order – and especially to shame people for finding joy in it.
But the thing is, God lifts up the created order. God uses the created order. What we too often forget when we unthinkingly attack the physical world in favor of the spiritual one is that while God may not be of the world, the world is most definitely of God. God created the heavens and the earth and all that dwells therein and said that it was good. And Jesus told us that God would use the world to give us glimpses of God, and to share God’s message.
“There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars…”
“Look at the fig tree…”
Near the end of Capote’s “A Christmas Memory”, after all the planning and preparing. After all the sorting and baking and making and giving… After all of that, the boy’s friend has an insight. She says:
My, how foolish I am! You know what I’ve always thought? I’ve always thought a body would have to be
sick and dying before they saw the Lord.
And I imagined that when He came it would be like looking at the Baptist
window: pretty as colored glass with the sun pouring through, such a shine you
don’t know it’s getting dark. And it’s
been a comfort: to think of that shine taking away all the spooky feeling. But I’ll wager it never happens. I’ll wager at the very end a body realizes
the Lord has already shown Himself. That
things as they are, just what they’ve always seen, was seeing Him. As for me, I could leave the world with today
in my eyes.
I think that’s at least part of what Advent is meant to be about. It’s about opening our eyes to see the glory of God that we’ve forgotten is right here. It’s about seeing, again, that Christ is already here; and still looking for Christ in ways that we’ve been missing.
It’s not so much that Advent leads to Christmas – like a train barreling to the next station. It’s that Christmas is what happens once Advent has done its work.
I wish you a fruitful journey. May we all open our eyes one minute and
realize what’s always been right here.
Amen.
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